2024 Oscars predictions: Who will get nominations for Best Picture and acting?

As we inch closer to the 2024 Oscars nominations, the battle for awards season gold is heating up.

Like Ken hiding in the backseat of Barbie's car, the fall festivals, Golden Globes, Critics Choice Awards, and SAG Awards nominations are firmly in our rearview, and the precursor circuit continues to lift top 2024 Oscars contenders into the race with each passing week (and precursor awards body that announces). The Academy, however, won't reveal its nominations until Jan. 23, meaning there's still plenty of time to get those last-minute nomination predictions into place.

Below, we've compiled expert picks for top categories before the 2024 Oscars nominations, from Martin Scorsese's latest likely victory to a repeat Barbie vs. Oppenheimer showdown in Best Picture.

See EW's 2024 Oscars predictions in key categories below, updating as often as the race changes throughout the season.

Best Picture

American Fiction
Anatomy of a Fall
Barbie
The Holdovers
Killers of the Flower Moon
Maestro
Oppenheimer
Past Lives
Poor Things
The Zone of Interest

What was once a wide-open race has narrowed in favor of Oppenheimer in the blink of an eye. With stacked, cross-branch unifying power building Oppenheimer’s profile as both a crafts monolith and an actors’ dream (three cast members will likely score nods from the Academy’s largest branch), Christopher Nolan’s historical epic feels likeliest to light Oscar voters’ collective fuse — especially after it steamrolled the Golden Globes with victories for Nolan, Cillian Murphy, Robert Downey Jr., Original Score, and Best Picture (Drama). While sitting some of the race out, Zone's rise can't be underestimated — especially since it popped up on the PGA's list, and the PGA uses the same preferential voting system as the Academy.

Best Director

Greta Gerwig, Barbie
Yorgos Lanthimos, Poor Things
Christopher Nolan, Oppenheimer
Alexander Payne, The Holdovers
Martin Scorsese, Killers of the Flower Moon

Hardly a star-driven vehicle, Oppenheimer’s $952 million run at the global box office strengthens its director’s name as a ticket-selling entity. Both audiences and industry voters value Nolan’s creative stamp equally, enough to pack theaters en masse — and celebrate his singular vision with consistent awards gold as the race unfolds. It seemed apparent at one point that Martin Scorsese’s success into his twilight years might signal the industry to rally around one of their shining beacons of talent while they still can, but Nolan's dominance at the Golden Globes, where it won five statuettes (including one for Nolan's direction) quickly put that notion to bed. The final slot is a battle between Alexander Payne, Jonathan Glazer, and Anatomy of a Fall's Justine Triet, all of whom received BAFTA nods over Gerwig, which frustratingly complicates the race thanks to the British group's insistence on having super small juries determine nominees.

Best Actor

Bradley Cooper, Maestro
Colman Domingo, Rustin
Paul Giamatti, The Holdovers
Cillian Murphy, Oppenheimer
Jeffrey Wright, American Fiction

Maestro’s convoluted script aside, Cooper’s Leonard Bernstein (partial) biopic is an acting masterclass, with director-star Cooper giving one of the best performances of his career as the conflicted composer. As is consistent with his career, though, the strength of Cooper’s work coupled with a long-overdue narrative (he has a whopping nine unconsummated nominations) won't be enough to push him over the top to claim a highly deserved win after multiple nods to his name. It's Cillian Murphy and Paul Giamatti's race to lose though, as the SAG and BAFTA tea leaves solidified their standing in the race. Leonardo DiCaprio failed to bag a SAG nomination this year, seemingly replaced by Rustin's Colman Domingo — while it might seem that the case will be reversed on Oscar nominations morning, with Killers overall awards profile looming large over Rustin's, Domingo was nominated at the BAFTA Awards, signaling that an Oscar nod is likely. Still, all eyes will be on SAG's eventual winner to determine the victor in this race, as Paul Giamatti won at both the Globes (in a different category than Murphy, though) and the Critics Choice, further complicating the projection in this race.

Best Actress

Lily Gladstone, Killers of the Flower Moon
Sandra Hüller, Anatomy of a Fall
Carey Mulligan, Maestro
Margot Robbie, Barbie
Emma Stone, Poor Things

Morphing from dawdling baby-woman to a full-on, feminist Frankenstein’s monstress, Emma Stone’s work in Poor Things is about as far a cry from her glitzy turn in La La Land as you can get. It’s bold, transformative, shocking, and sees the performer exploring uncharted places both physically and emotionally. In essence, it hooks the heart and the eyes, and that’s a winning combination for Stone in a film that has major Best Picture heat, too — and she cemented her status as a major threat in the category with a Best Actress (Musical/Comedy) victory at the Golden Globes. Still, Lily Gladstone has swept most of the precursors so far (including on the Globes' dramatic side) and, statistically, she’s the one to beat. That could change (or strengthen) once BAFTA announces it nominees (that will surely include Sandra Hüller where SAG did not), as Stone is a more recognizable name and Killers' story has more relevance to U.S. voters. But, talent is talent, and the actors across the board could lift up Gladstone as a vital presence at the front of Scorsese’s epic drama.

Best Supporting Actor

Willem Dafoe, Poor Things
Robert De Niro, Killers of the Flower Moon
Robert Downey Jr., Oppenheimer
Ryan Gosling, Barbie
Charles Melton, May December

Given Barbie’s themes, it feels a bit cruel to predict, uh, the man behind Ken to be the sole above-the-line winner from Greta Gerwig’s industry-shaking masterwork, but his performance is certainly the biggest (and showiest) of those in contention — plus, he carries goodwill in the industry (he’s already bagged festival honors for this role) and a light overdue narrative that should be Kenough to push him into the nominees circle. Still, Robert Downey Jr.'s began a huge upward trajectory at the Globes, which ushered him in as the category frontrunner over Ken's supremacy — especially given the Oscars' track record of awarding actors for playing real-life historical figures (as Downey Jr. does in Oppenheimer). And, while Charles Melton was shockingly left off SAG's Supporting Actor nominees, his performance in May December feels like it will resonate with the Academy's broader voting base of international actors versus SAG's more general, centralized, U.S.-based membership, so count Melton in for now.

Best Supporting Actress

Emily Blunt, Oppenheimer
Danielle Brooks, The Color Purple
Jodie Foster, Nyad
Rosamund Pike, Saltburn
Da’Vine Joy Randolph, The Holdovers

The original Color Purple winning zero Oscars remains one of the biggest embarrassments in Academy history, and although it's looking like Blitz Bazawule’s musical adaptation might end up with a similar tally, Orange Is the New Black actress Danielle Brooks has shown up everywhere on the precursor circuit so far — including at the SAG Awards, the only industry-inclusive major awards body to announce its nominees so far. After SAG left Julianne Moore out of its lineup in favor of Penélope Cruz, it's easy to recall that the Oscars are no stranger to throwing a stray Cruz into the mix (see: Parallel Mothers), though Moore has a bigger profile on the bigger circuit to date and should find herself with another Oscar nod to her credit come the end of January. But, all of the other nominees for Supporting Actress are simply fighting for second place, as it’s Da’Vine Joy Randolph in The Holdovers, however, who’s made the biggest splash on the trail, scoring nominations (or wins) at every major precursor to date, including a big victory at the Golden Globes.

Best Animated Feature

The Boy and the Heron
Elemental
Nimona
Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse
The Super Mario Bros. Movie

Between Mario grossing over $1 billion worldwide and Disney eyeing a resurgence in the final bracket following a curious snub at the Annie Awards for the first time ever, the Animated race is a remarkably commercial affair this year. While not the biggest earner of the bunch, Across has a solid web to stand on, with universal critical acclaim and golden precedent, as its predecessor won this category in 2019 — but, emotional sentiment fueling the mere existence of Miyazaki’s latest (arguably a mid-tier affair for the Japanese icon) could squeeze out a victory for the global box office success on the director’s name alone.

Check out more from EW's The Awardist, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis, and our podcast diving into all the highlights from the year's best in TV.

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